How to make a wagon wheel from cardboard?

Easy if you have your cardboard.

Take an use pick (anything with a point will do), and tie a string on it long enough to use every part of the cardboard. Attach a pencil at the other end if the string. Now you just made a jumbo compass. While keeping the middle in place and the string taught, draw your outer circle. Shorten the string (till it looks right), and draw another circle inside the large one. Now take a straight edge and draw lines for your spokes, 2 lines for each spoke. Use an exacto knife or similar to cut out.

Here is a drawing: hope it goes thru!

Hi, Psmith... Is there any chance you can get hold of a transparency projector from a church or school, and a couple of transparencies that work with your printer? If so, find an image you like on the internet, down load and print on the transparency. Place the transparency on the projector screen. Put a big sheet of paper or cardboard on the wall—slightly larger than the wagon wheel you want. Focus the projector from across the room on the paper. Use a pencil first and trace the perimeter of the wagon wheel, then all of the details. Then you can take the paper down and cut out the wagon wheel, trace it on thick cardboard, foam board, or plywood, cut it out, and you can color in the rest of the details.

I’m excited to see what you do. Please post your project on Hometalk. ☺️

I happen to have purchased a long roll of couragated cardboard ( probably from Uline) it is approx 4" wide " flat" on one side, and couragated on the other. I would use that for the Rim, and create the spokes from straight slices of boxes from the grocery store. The center of the wheel could be again from the roll, maybe a 2" wide instead of full width?

I would attach the parts to each other probably with glue, rather than tape, becasue i am thinking you will be painting it brown. or black or that " rustoleum brown " rusty surface primer color".

In any case the paint may not adhere to the tape or to the glue... so try to minimize that - or test in advance. Paint might be okay over ordinary masking tape, but a disaster on clear tape. or glue!

You might be able to use little nails/ brads - or even sewing pins to attach the spokes. Those would be so small and a quick spray of metal suitable primer would take care of the coverage.

I would look up how to actually make a real one out of iron or wood, and consider what construction options seem sturdy enough and easy enough to translate to cardboard version.